The present invention relates to an improved modular fishing sinker and in particular to a snag free, sliding sinker assembly comprised of a plastic mounting eye or head piece and a weight member that respectively plug mount to opposite ends of an intermediate hollow, non-buoyant tubular member capable of supporting additional connection pieces and/or rattle pieces and/or luminous materials and/or luminous/reflective devices and/or non-buoyant ballast materials and/or scent materials among other accessory appliances.
Fishing weights can comprise any device or item that can be attached to a fishing line to submerse further attached hook(s), artificial and/or live bait. Most weights designed for attachment to a fish line are molded or formed from lead, bismuth, steel or another dense, non-corroding, economical materials that are not buoyant in water (i.e. have a specific gravity greater than that of the fish containing water).
Wide varieties of special purpose fishing sinkers have been developed for salt and fresh water fishing with differing shapes and some of which include cast apertures, channels or eyelets. Some sinkers include accessory pieces (e.g. wire form) that attach to or are molded into the sinker. Of the former types, so called “egg” type sinkers provide a longitudinal bore. Of the latter type, “bottom bouncer” type sinkers” provide an eye or eyelet at a bent wire form that receives a fish line threaded through the eye or eyelet. All of the foregoing sliding sinkers anchor and support the fish line and attached bait in sliding relation on or near the bottom of a body of water. A hook secured to the fish line supports appropriate bait such that the fish line can freely move without the drag of the sinker upon releasing the line to a “free spool” condition with a fish striking the bait and hook. Stops (e.g. knots, split shot, pegs) can be secured to the line or sinker to restrict or limit line or sinker movement.
Some sinkers are constructed as an elongated configuration that is designed to permit the sinker to slide along the bottom or glide above the bottom of the lake or water bed. The elongated design minimizes snagging of associate debris and fauna found growing from the ocean floor, lake, stream or river bed. Other attractors (e.g. slide stops, beads, spinner blades, hooks, filamentary skirts, colorized devices) can be supported to the fish line above or below the sinker.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,233,786; 5,243,779; 5,305,543; 5,375,365; 5,461,821; 5,531,821; 6,073,386; and 6,691,450 disclose a variety of elongated slide or “slip” mounting sinkers. Other elongated sinkers including buoyant members are shown at U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,145,240; 6,305,121; 6,484,435; and 6,874,272.
The present invention provides a novel, improved slip sinker wherein one end of a hollow tubular body mounts to a molded plastic head piece that includes an eye or aperture that receives a threaded fish line and an opposite end mounts to modular ballast pieces of differing weights. Shaped surfaces molded into the head piece and ballast piece restrain the head and ballast pieces to the tubular body to define an elongated assembly wherein a ballast piece of appropriate weight is supported to contact or glide adjacent the river bed, lake bottom or the like. Alternative sinker configurations contain luminous materials or devices, rattle pieces, and ballast materials within the body piece and/or provide a ballast connector that mounts to the body piece and receives interchangeable weights.